If you have ever ripped the leather upholstery in your car or on your favorite sofa you know it can be expensive to repair.

Just ask Carla, she inherited a couple of couches from a relative that have several rips and tears in the leather.

"There's three options for this one," Carla said. "One, I repair it. Two, I cover it. And three, it gets tossed."

Carla asked us to come out and try the Leather and Vinyl Repair Kit to see if we could easily repair these rips and gouges for just $19.99.

"If it works, it's definitely worth it," she said.

The directions are hard to follow and there are no photographs or illustrations to help. So we read it over and over to make sure we do this right.

First Carla trimmed the ragged edges away from the tear and put a small piece of fabric under the tear. We found the right color, black, that was easy. And applied the repair compound onto the damaged spot. "It goes on pretty well," she said. Then cover the wet compound with a matching grain textured paper.

So far so good. Then Carla had to cure the repair compound with heat. "The heating element requires home iron," Carla read from the directions. Following the instructions she placed the heat application tool to a hot iron, then rubbed it over the textured paper.

But after several tries, the compound just did not cure.

We needed professional help, so we called the help line and the head of the company answered. He said we weren't doing it quite right. He said the iron might not be getting the heating tool hot enough and suggested we heat it with the flame from a lighter.

That made a big difference and the liquid compound finally cured to a leather appearance.

Still Carla was frustrated with the product. "It's just not simple," she said. "That's just all there is to it."

And the final results did not look like new. "The results are . . ." she said, "actually the results are terrible."

Carla gave up on trying to repair her couch and decided to try covering the rips. "For the Leather and Vinyl Repair Kit," she said, "two thumbs down."